• Brass Hats

January 16, 1945

 LINER NOTES

During much of my band days, Ray Norman was with me. Little did I realize that he would be involved in the production of this 1981 album of tunes that we had recorded in the early forties, the most exciting era of "Tommy Tucker Time." Now Ray has asked me to write these liner notes to answer the many questions I have been asked since the remarkable "good old days."

Are The Big Bands Coming Back?

There is no doubt that the big bands have endured a long, long recession. However, they never completely left. Now, in 1981, there are thousands of college, high school and grade school stage bands in full swing. A reliable source estimated that back in 1971, there were more than 16,000 high school stage bands in existence, with the number growing daily. This figure did not include college and grade school, nor small units. Also, it did not include the great number of dance bands composed of older Musicians, alumni of former organizations.

Who Are Your Alumni?

We have fewer alumni than most bands. Our personnel remained so constant even through the war years that our turnover was minimal. Our performers did not go out on their own to any great extent. One of our most likely to succeed as a single was vocalist, Don Brown. He chose to remain with us year after year, until he was killed in an automobile accident. Those who did go out and onto stardom include Edie Gorme, Danny Davis and Gerry Mulligan .

Edie was great to get along with, and an excellent singer. On an occasional night off she would baby-sit for my wife Dare and myself, with our daughter Trudy.(Our two sons, Lewis and Randy, were to arrive later). Danny Davis and his Nashville Brass you all know. As for Gerry Mulligan, although he is a great jazz saxophonist - he never played in our band. We had no opening in our full sax section of five, so he joined us as an arranger. Another alumnus is the fine clarinetist, Clarence Hutchenrider. He left us to become a feature of Casa Loma for many years.

What Were Your Biggest Record Hits?

Our three biggest sellers were: I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire, The Man That Comes Around, and I Love You (original theme song). My favorite record, That Old Sweetheart of Mine, never made it. It was based on a poem by James Whitcomb Riley, which I had studied in grade school and greatly enjoyed. I had high hopes for that tune. It wasn't to be, but we never stopped trying.

Did You Ever Record Any Jazz?

As our patrons knew us, we were a middle-of-the-road band, with the emphasis on sweet music. However, we did record a moderate amount of jazz. As far back as 1936, we recorded Am I In Love? with a jazz clarinet solo which sounds rather good today. An interesting fact is that the chorus had been written out completely by our soloist, and played to sound ad lib!

Speaking of recordings, we made many hundreds. We had Vocalion's biggest hit, The Man That Comes Around, and had two releases every month for quite some time. When we were switched to the OKEH Label, we came out with its biggest, I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire. Then on Columbia and later on MGM, our sales were consistently strong.

What Was Your Identification?

As our theme, I used an original tune I Love You, with a vocal trio singing the lyrics. This became very important to us, with the result that our record of it became one of our best sellers.(We recorded it on four different labels.) Then came a time when many bands were trying for unique styles and each band would be known for its particular stylized sound. We had a middle-of-the-road sound, principally sweet, many vocals - and easy jazz in contrast. A dance set of four arrangements would usually be slow - slow - slow - moderate, as to tempo. This calls to mind that my good friend and jazz critic, George Simon said that our last encore would often send dancers off the floor. Little did he realize that we catered to couples who preferred slow tempos. By our pattern of slow - slow - slow - moderate, our patrons could dance three parts, and then stand to listen as we increased the beat. Mixing our tempos would only confuse our dancers, and we played to dancing feet. If couples enjoyed their dancing, how could they hate us?

Back to identification. Since our music was not especially stylized, we needed a trademark. So I hit upon the idea of using the sound of a clock's tick-tock to introduce our radio shows, a spoken slogan, It's Tommy Tucker Time, and then our theme. This was an instant success. It took only a lick or two on wood blocks of different pitches to start us on our radio programs, with many of our listeners at home and in the ballroom imitating our tick-tock. The alliteration of all the T's also made the sound more interesting!

What a lucky idea that was! It nailed down our identification to immediate recognition of our band. I even went so far as to add eight bars of a tick-tock sound to each arrangement that we did on our next record date. However, I dropped the idea on all subsequent dates. I simply could not justify it artistically, used in that manner.

How Big Was Your Band?

Our organization grew to include four in rhythm, including Hal Dennis at the piano, five saxes, including Mac Becker and Roy Underwood, seven Brass with Danny Davis, five singers including at different times Clare Nelson, Madeline Russell, Amy Arnell, Don Brown, Kerwin Somerville, Peter Hanley and the three two-timers. Also my personal manager, Joe Galkin, road manager, Al Iossi,, an arranger, (Van Alexander for a while) and two band boys. And let's not forget the thirteen wives who traveled with us on our chartered bus!

When it came time to retire completely from the band business, education became my second career. It came rather naturally, as I graduated from the University of North Dakota with a major in music and a Phi Beta Kappa Key to attest capability. I was a professor in music at Monmouth College in New Jersey for the next twenty years. Full retirement took place in 1979. I headed for the state of Florida and truly a place in the sun!